Morgoth's Vile Legacy
by Zandoz
Summary: Lord of the Rings fan fiction. My imagining of the dark Elder Days and the corruption of the Elves.
1. Chapter 1

The mighty Vala Melkor revelled in his nigh-unstoppable power in Middle-earth, but one thing he found he couldn't do: using his own devices he was unable to create creatures to serve and adore him as Eru (humans and Elves) and Aule(the Dwarves) had done. His fortress Thangorodrim at Angband was unassailable and his position quite secure now that he had the precious Silmarils, yet he wasn't satisfied with this. He wanted Children of his own to do his bidding and to make and do things as Men and Elves and Dwarves did in honor of the Gods. Melkor's only aptitudes were for subjugation, greed, and terror. And let's not forget deceit, for the vile spirit Ungoliant, that bloated spider-monster, helped him to steal the Silmarils and caught him in his attempt to double-cross her, and it was only his few loyal servants who helped him fight her off when she cornered him in Middle-earth.

Good help was increasingly difficult to procure.

Dwarves were far too single-minded and tough to make effective servants, even those few that were apt to his will. And Men, while their lust, greed, and need for domination at times rivalled his own, they died much too soon and were so very fickle. No sooner than one faction fell under his sway than all their neighbors were up in arms, and before long all his clever plans were in ruin. No, what he needed were useful servants bred just for the purpose, who would be accepted nowhere and by nobody else.

Elves Melkor hated, being jealous of the Firstborn of Eru, the supreme Creator of the Valar, the Guardians of Middle-earth. They were meant to all eventually return to the bosom of their Maker, and were the fairest and wisest of all the sentient beings on this mortal plane, and they died not. Grief, and dire illness and wounds can kill them, but naught else. But wait...what if he could pervert His greatest achievment to his own plans? What a delicously malicious idea...

He went forth himself to procure specimens to carry out his idea, an enormous figure of shadow and darkness but for the glitter of the Silmarils, those jewels of elven-craft who captured the light and majesty of the Two Trees of Valinor before they were extinguished by the gluttonous Ungoliant. They were affixed to a massive Iron Crown that he wore atop his accursed head, he who was Melkor and now called Morgoth. He knew at the borders of his western kingdom lay the Hidden elven-city of Gondolin, the abode of the High-elves. He had not the strength to assail their stronghold, but he could catch some Elves out on errand, perhaps. He scaled himself down to make better use of cover, and so he waited. The elves' distasteful touch was evident all around, from the annoyingly twittering birds to the retchingly pristine forest and the deer with those big moist eyes. He wanted to smash and rend it all, and he would, but not just yet.

He had humans under his sway with him and they grew restless as the distressingly sunny day wore on. Finally he felt the coming of the fair ones, galloping right to him on dainty steeds on a leisurely hunt. This hunt would be their undoing, Melkor thought grimly. The men sprang on the small group of elves, who even though taken unawares defended themselves fiercely. That is, until the Dark Lord strode into the middle of them, causing the horses to rear and scream, their riders stroking and whispering to them to calm the beasts. With a great hand he clutched at one unfortunate Elf, hauling him right off his horse, and with the other hand dragged a fair elven woman by her ebony hair. "To me!," he barked to his slaves and they obeyed, leaving the other Elves bewildered and blinking in the evening sun. He had gotten what he needed, pulling the struggling Fae behind him.

They cried and begged in their silvery tongues, tears streaming down smooth, angular faces. How they cried! He chuckled at them until their weeping wearied him, then he had his warriors gag them and drive them before the host. The men rallied as they neared the fortress at Angband, thinking they would have much sport with the new captives. "Not yet," Morgoth told them. "In time you will have your entertainment, but not yet."

"Please," sobbed the Elven hunter as his gag was removed. "Please let us go! We've done nothing to you!"

"Nothing?," snarled Melkor with a curl of his cruel lip. "Your existance is a blight to mine! You who have immortality and bliss undeserved! You who thought you could slay your own kin at the Valar's doorstep to pursue me, ME, the Lord of all Middle-earth! And your kind think to tutor me on morality?! Bah!"

"But--but we were just hunting in the woods, we have never borne arms against you," the female elf put in.

"You are one of the High-elves, are you not?," he demanded.

Dropping her green eyes she replied affirmative.

"Then you are guilty in the Kinslaying even if you spilled no blood, you benefitted from the act by climbing on board those ships stained with the blood of your cousins! You flung the Creator's gifts back in his naive face!"

"No! That's not true!," she shouted back.

"Enough! You tire me," he backhanded her with such force her head flopped on her shoulders. "Take them to Sauron," he said with relish.

Sauron. Already the name had fearful associations. A Maiar, one of the spirits who served the Valar, he was great in cruelty and ambition, and he learned well from Melkor. Torment and lies were his playthings, and one thing he was NOT was idle. Laziness was not one of his faults. He was ever industrious in vicious schemes of his own, and Morgoth never discouraged him. "Shall I put them on the rack?," he asked his mentor.

"Nay, let them hang for a while. An experiment, if you will. Come to me after the prisoners are secured and I will tell you."

Chains and shackles hung down from the wall which he attached to the Eldar's wrists and he was taken aback when the male one spoke to him in Quenya, the High-elven language. Sauron had forgotten that he was in his most beautiful form, a likeness of the Quendi, and the hunter had taken him for an Elf and in desperation was imploring him to free them.

"Do you not know who I am?," he asked in Quenya. "I am Sauron, Melkor's lieutenant. Bringer of Pain. Captain of his Guard. Extractor of Secrets," and at this he smiled, his even, white teeth glistening in the torchlight.

"Then you are not Eldar?," the elf-woman questioned, hopes sinking.

"Indeed not! Though I do admire them from time to time." Tossing his auburn hair he grinned at her again as he left, a thoroughly unpleasant feeling.

So there they hung by their arms, until stretched muscles and nerve endings stopped screaming and receded into dull ache, and parched mouths could barely close over swollen, dry tongues. "Fingol," rasped the Eldarin lady. "Are you awake?"

"Aye," he managed to croak. "I'm still here, Miriel. What are they going to do to us?"

"I know not. If ransom they wanted they would've sent messages demanding payment."

"Do you think the others of our party survived?"

"I believe they still walk free under the Sun..." Miriel missed the Sun and the light of the Stars at night when all was still and cool, and she missed dancing upon the grass to the sound of flute and harps.

"I do hope so," sighed Fingol, lowering his blond head.

"Hope!," came a growling voice. "That word has no use here." A figure stepped into their view in the small, dim room. "I came to give you a choice of your fate." It was Morgoth, and the jewels in his crown glittered coldly, mocking the captives. "You can serve me willingly, and recieve great rewards. Or you can refuse, and your anguish will be such that you will beg me with your lilting voices for death. But it won't come, O no, Firstborn of Iluvatar. It will be pain neverending, everlasting."

"Do what you will, Dark One," hissed Miriel. "We would never bow to you!"

"I thought you might say as much," Morgoth sneered. "In fact, I hoped you would." He took hold of her narrow chin in his great clawed hand. Deep, remorseless eyes bore into her own green ones, piercing the thoughts within, and she screamed long and long. Fingol's screams of pity and helplessness joined hers after a time, feeding the Dark Lord's joy. In his jailor's office Sauron smiled, nostrils flaring as he smelled blood. "Stop! Stop it! Leave her alone," cried Fingol, unable to bear her ragged screams. He couldn't peer around his right arm to see exactly what was being done to her.

"Your race wanted _this_, did they not?," Melkor demanded, pressing in his gloved hand one of the Silmarils to the elf's forehead. Using his twisted will he burned Fingol's flesh, turning the sacred jewel's light to evil purpose. The heat seemed to sink into skin, into his very brain, scorching bone and soul alike. The elf-crafted artifact glowed angrily at being put to such use, necessitating the usage of a heavy, spell-protected glove. The elf bit into his lower lip to keep from shrieking in pain, to rob his tormentor of some of his glee. A small gasp escaped his lips, eliciting a chuckle from the evil Vala.

After what seemed like hours the searing agony ceased. "Still unmoved?," Morgoth queried. "Well then. Sauron, do with them what you wish."

Sauron stepped forward, cold malice in his glowing eyes.


	2. Broken

The prisoners were stripped slowly, Sauron relishing their shame and discomfort, then he flicked a whip of many thongs at the Eldar's slender backs protected only by their linen undergarments. He wasn't even in earnest but playing with them. The Elves' appearances were decieving; they could survive much abuse and neglect for the Fire of Creation burned hot in them and wasn't easily extinguished. And that's what made it so fun. After some time, when the captives' skin and clothing hung in tatters, he left them slumped against their bonds.

Sometime that night Miriel found the strength to weep softly, her tears sliding down her delicate nose unheeded to fall to the hard-packed dugeon floor. A week passed by and the tears stopped coming and was replaced by numbness broken occasionally by great anger. Each day brought a new torment even though their arm-shackles were replaced by iron neck-collars attached to the wall. By then the guards had no more fear of the emaciated and beaten-down Elves doing anything to escape or do them much harm. Morgoth made sure food started being left for them; he didn't want his new pets dying too soon. It was hardly to their liking, however.

Sniffing the slabs of bloody meath and stone-hard bread beside dirty water Miriel whimpered and backed away from it. Her stomach rumbled, however. She lapped some of the water to ease her cracked lips and burning throat, looking over at her companion. Like her, he was for all intents and purposes naked, his grey eyes growing big in his gaunt face due to the dimly lit cell they lived in day after day. Scars riddled their once-glorious bodies, the woman's finely chiseled nose now crooked and marred and one shoulder held above the other one. Sauron had had fun dislocating her arm as Morgoth looked on, the Black Tyrant overseeing the progress of his little brainchild.

Clutching a strip of nasty-looking meat Fingol started to bite into it when Miriel shrieked. "What if it's poisoned?," she demanded, shocked at his stupidity.

"Why would they keep us alive if they were just going to poison us? He--the Dark Lord--could easily kill us at any time." He bit the extremely rare meat and chewed, swallowed. He didn't keel over immediately and that was encouraging. Before too many more days Miriel joined him in eating the disgusting beast-flesh and maggot-ridden bread. Shuffling forward as far as he could on his leash Fingol smelled the air from the tiny slit in the wall. Melkor had broken his ankle and it healed wrong, causing the foot to turn in awkwardly. "It's night-time," he announced in a hoarse bark.

"So?," sniffed his companion.

"So, we've survived another day."

"And what good is that?," she asked crossly. "To be sport of these vile creatures?"

"Sport?," asked Sauron, Gorthaur the Cruel, almost kindly. "It isn't sport alone, my lovelies."

"Then what is it?," questioned Fingol.

"Now that would be telling," he evaded, approaching them quite intently. He was tall and angular like an Elf, but eyes weren't right, they were filled with such malice and perversion that there was no way he could be one of the Fair Ones. "I can smell your hate...hah. Your race have prided yourselves on your grace, restraint, and other high-minded ideals. Didn't take you too long to sink down to the rest of us."

"We had done nothing wrong! To do this to us is wrong!," screamed Miriel, voice going shrilly. "I hate you and I have good reason! Ahh--"

"Were you going to curse me?," he chuckled, quite amused. "Let me pour some invective in your pointy ear, milady," and he pinned her against the wall with his awful prescence, a long-fingered hand wrapped around her long, slender throat. "I hear lots of wonderful conversation from my Lord's slaves and servants." Whispering in her ear he began, "You haven't yet begun to suffer, bitch. Here at the impenetrable fortress of Angband you are naught but pussy-meat fit for the sport of my Hill-men. Little Elven slut, I wonder what would make you hate me more than you do already." She sobbed, never having been talked to like that in all her many years, emerald eyes widening as the whispers became softer and more menacing. "...would you like to see my special little toy, my little...probe? It's made of iron and studded and it's..oh, about this long," he held his hands unbelievably far apart. His perfectly-formed lips were touching her pointed ear so very lightly, breathing hard and inhaling the scent of her hair. "Yesss...I feel your fear and disgust, but oho! There's something else too: curiosity." He laughed vilely, running his hand from her neck to her small breast and squeezing. "Are you afraid I might use it on you? Or use my own personal tool on you? Hahaha, I don't lust as you do--I never had a mortal body or needs. Doing this is sport enough, but for you...for you I could make an exception."

Lip quivering, she tried to shrink further away from him and couldn't. "You...bastard," she croaked weakly.

Snickering he turned to Fingol, who eyed him tiredly. The torture had been especially rough on him, it seems. "And you, my pretty boy," Gorthaur laughed. "Perhaps I could probe _you_ with my iron toy. Perhaps you would even enjoy it!"

"Damn you!," growled Fingol.

"That's the spirit!"

As the months wore on all they heard was profanity and abuse from and among the guards, and began greeting Gorthaur and his master with a hurled "Fuck you!"

"I love you too, my dears," quipped Morgoth one such day.

"You love nothing," spat Fingol bitterly.

"Ah, but you are wrong. I have put much work and labor into you. I don't cast aside things needlessly and I waste very little. Think you the words I spoke to you when you first arrived I actually felt? I blame you for nothing little ones. The Mighty take what is their due, and you have a will that cannot be denied. How do you purpose that you have survived all that we have doled out to you? I have made you tougher than iron or steel, tougher even than _mithril_." Holding out his Silmaril-scorched hand his Shadow passed over them, clouding their eyes and mind. The hazy memories of untouched forests and gurgling waterfalls receded even further, recalled only rarely in dream. The taste of _lembas_, the glow of moonlight and starlight on smooth-skinned, unlined faces, the smell of the first spring rains, they faded into the darkness and shadow. What was real was here and now, and what was real was pain. Pain...and their Masters.

Seasons passed in Middle-earth, and life went on in the lands much as it had before, and life in the Iron Tower also went on much like before, except that two forlorn figures picked their way down the steep mountain, avoiding the Sun as much as possible. Sauron watched them go, sighing and turning to his Lord. "Is this wise, turning them loose like this?"

"Whither can they go, Gorthaur? Who would abide or succor them now? And besides, they cannot escape me, my Mark is on them. Wait, and watch."

Using cruelty and the darkest magic, he had stripped them off all their positive attributes, everything that marked them as Elves had been taken from them. Stumbling along, crouched low to the ground the pair threaded their way down. Twisted by torture and black magic they were misshapen, horrible mockeries of their former selves, skin mottled and scarred, faces bludgeoned beyond repair.

"Do you remember the way?," asked Fingol.

"Yes, I think I do," answered Miriel. "D'you think we're being followed?"

"Hmm, I don't know, but the Sun is burning my eyes. Maybe we should travel by night." Reaching back into memories of their former life they made their slow way back to the forest they used to hunt in, catching small game in clawed hands and eating it as they went.

"Fingol, will they even know us when we get there? Our bodies have endured so much.."

"They'll know, Miriel."

"Garn!," swore the woman. "The moonlight is even bright, curse it."

The next night a feast in the clearing in the woods was disrupted by two hunched figures stepping toward the fire with arms outstretched in supplication. Two more miserable, wretched, pitiful-looking creatures none had ever seen in their long lives. "What is the meaning of this?," demanded the Elven-lord Maldun. "Who are you?"

"Please..help us. Prisoners of Angband we have been...," the pair croaked. At this some of the Elves cried out that they should be turned out quickly before they were all killed by the agents of Morgoth, and others exclaimed that any creature treated so beastly must be tended and helped. Compassion was the medicine for the Dark Lord's ills, they said, not more cruelty.

When at last their names were discovered some of their friends and kin-folk were amazed and dismayed, for they were unrecognizable to all who once knew them. The pair were fed and given clothing to cover their poor bodies, and they slept as ones dead for a night and a day. When they awoke they found their ordeal was far from over. Suspicion followed them everywhere they walked, and the other Elves could hardly bear to look at them. Then came the reports of fell beasts and creatures of terror finding their way to the hidden forests and enclaves. Werewolves and Wargs and others things to terrible to name preyed on the Eldar.

Fingers were pointed at Miriel and Fingol. "They led the monsters here," many said.

"They'll kill us in our sleep," said others.

Their lord Maldun heard all this and was troubled, for he felt it were better to have the wretches here under his eye rather than out somewhere causing michief, or worse yet back at Thangorodrim.


	3. Paradise Lost

Their lord Maldun heard all this and was troubled, for he felt it were better to have the wretches here under his eye rather than out somewhere causing michief, or worse yet back at Thangorodrim.

The unfortunate pair shunned the sunlight and found eating the carefully prepared and cooked Elven food hard to do. They also found the pity-filled glances of their kind nigh-unbearable. Fingol became enamoured of the elf maiden Ardala, and she came to them often in the hopes of easing their suffering with her presence and acceptance. Dark-haired and grey-eyed like many of the Quendi she didn't flinch when she went to the sunless chambers they resided in during the day. "I do wish you would take some fresh air with me," she told them, and not for the first time. "Master Maldun and I both think it would do you good."

"Good souls such as yourself talking with us is good," Miriel said, lips pulled back in a grimace which now passed for a smile. "Methinks Fingol especially craves it."

"And why not?," he shot his peer a sour look. "Come sit by me my fair one, and tell me of the Elf King Gil-galad." Ardala regaled them with tales of her visit to Gondolin the Hidden City and sang some songs she'd heard there. The day wore on to evening and she made ready to go to her rest when Fingol pulled at her arm. "Surely you are not leaving? You could..spend the night with me, could you not?," he whispered huskily. "There's so much I could show you." Her face proclaimed her outrage as she pulled away, darting down the halls like a frightened animal.

Fingol tried mastering his frustration, not meeting Miriel's eyes. "This is all wrong," she said to no one but herself. "Morgoth knew we'd be miserable, that's why he let us go."

"Hah! He tired of tormenting us, he couldn't break us. What more could he do save kill us outright?"

"He is cunning and patient, and there's something he's after, I'm sure."

"Save your riddle-making! You are jealous of the Damosel Ardala, that is plain." He was tired of her talking and wished she would shut up. Suddenly the foresight of his people came upon him and he cried "We've brought death to all our people!"

"Wh--what?"

"We must go!," his glance darted all around the room like a rabbit in a snare.

"But where will we go?"

Just then raised voices and a clamor could be heard as the Elves were called to arms. Foul beasts and wild Hill-men were attacking, and none knew how they knew where they were hidden. And a Balrog was with them.

Balrog: a shadow and a flame all wrapped into one terrible being. Of old they were Maiar who chose to go down to Middle-earth and serve Melkor, and the very flames of Udun resided in their forms. The fear in the Elf encampment was rampant and palpable as word spread, and Thirgon, one of their greatest champions, could be heard rallying the Eldar.

Then he burst into the room, face stern and grim. "You," he spat, a strand of honey-colored hair hanging across one eye. "You miserable wretches, you've led them right to us!" More Elves came up behind them, and many of them apparently were of like mind, for their gazes held disgust and contempt.

"Mayhap the Balrog wants Morgoth's own back!," shouted someone.

"Send them back to the rampaging horde!," suggested someone else.

"How do you dare," spoke Miriel softly and coldly. "You have no right to judge us. Look at me! Look at what we've both endured!" Some of those present lowered their heads in shame.

Maldun appeared behind the throng, pushing his way through. "Stop! We have the defense of our people to man, leave these two poor souls be!" His power and will daunted most of the folk there but Thirgon, who was undeterred.

"And whose doing was it that brought the monsters hence? It is my charge to make sure the King's subjects are safe, and it is you who have jeapordized it by allowing them to stay."

Casting his gaze about Fingol spotted Ardala in the crowd and hated the mingled pity and fear he saw there. Suddenly he hated all of them, hated himself, but most of all he hated Morgoth the Enemy. What happened then was a blur and a mess of conflicted stories afterward, but what was clear after it was over was that without weapon or aid Fingol and Miriel fell upon the host, cleaving a path straight through them. Thirgon lay in the middle of the room with his throat torn out by jagged teeth and Ardala was slumped against the bed, drained from overuse of her powers trying to hinder the pair. A few more were dead or wounded, clawed, bitten and beaten.

Blood was everywhere, and the people scattered like insects trying to escape an inexorable enemy bent on their destruction. The Balrog sensed the escapees in their headlong flight from the place and called off the assault--he had specific orders to follow the two and mark their progress.

Hand in hand they sped into the woods, glad of the cover of night. Alone they cursed their fate, their race, the Valar and Morgoth in particular. And in the Iron Fortress he laughed at the horrific happenings, pleased with his plans. And marked with his malice and magic their feet brought them back to the place of the death of old lives and rebirth of their new one. Terror of the Balrog had hastened them, but inevitably there they were before the gates of Thangorodrim, two stooped, frightened figures ushered in like expected guests. Melkor welcomed them back with open arms, but they were weeping and tearing their hair.

"So, you have tasted the Elves' hypocrisy and the dust of their 'compassion.' They fear you, and rightly so, for they are weak and foolish!"

"We are ruined, ruined!," they wailed. "They hate us! How they loathe us!"

"Nay," Morgoth declared. "I made you, and you are beautiful and strong. You are the First. My Children."

Many children they bred together and separately with the evil Men in Morgoth's service, and some other Elves that had been captured and twisted as well. They forgot all the fair things under the Sun and served their Master as soldiers and thralls, and the bastard offspring had not the Light of the Eldar, but lived and multiplied as all mortal things in Middle-earth. They are the _Glamhoth_, the hated. They are the Orcs.

One thing the ancient tales do not tell is what happened to the Mother and Father of Orcs, and that is the immortality they were born with was never revoked by the Valar in the hopes that a cure for their hurts and evils could be somehow found, and that centuries later by Sauron's machinations they were used to breed the race of fighting-orcs, the Uruk-Hai, from tall Men and Orcs with human blood in them. Half-orcs during the Third Age of Middle-earth could be found, usually as highway robbers, ruffians and assorted villains, but Uruk-hai and halfbreed alike fell back in the face of a fear they could not name, and that wasn't Sauron the Cruel. Some thought it was whatever evil Gods they served in the Darkness...

But faint whispers tell of two wizened, dark-skinned creatures who were so fearsome and horrifying they put to flight Uruk-hai in the land of Mordor itself, emptying the roads even more, for Sauron was in the throes of the War of the Ring, the Great War. The land was unwatched, allowing two small little people to make their way to Mount Doom, where the Ring was destroyed and Sauron cast down utterly together. For the first time Hobbits were among the renowned and the great. Hints of Mother and Father of Night-time fears never reached the Halflings' land of the Shire, but it was in some of the tales of the South.

Perhaps Fingol and Miriel were at last revenged upon their torturer. Perhaps they had lived all those millenia, finally atoning for the vile race they spawned. Perhaps even they were allowed the Grace of all High-elves of Middle-earth, to pass into the Uttermost West, to the Blessed Realm, and find peace at last. Perhaps.


End file.
